


Art of Having Sex Without Touching, The

by chai4anne



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s07e15 Election Day Part I, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-04
Updated: 2007-04-04
Packaged: 2019-05-15 11:27:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14789636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chai4anne/pseuds/chai4anne
Summary: Donna's thoughts--and Josh's--on what happens between them on Election Day.





	1. The Art of Having Sex Without Touching

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

  
Author's notes: Rating: Mature (Don't expect anything too explicit; I just try to label these things the way we're told to.)

Category: a series of post-eps or missing scenes for the \"Election Day\" episodes

Spoilers: Through \"Election Day II\"

Disclaimers: All the usual.

 

Notes: The first in a group of four little stories, all of them a departure from my usual thing. I'm not very pleased with any of them, except possibly the first, and I'm not really sure why I wrote them, especially so long after the episode aired-it's not like there's any shortage of post-eps for this episode out there, or anything left to say that hasn't been said far more effectively by somebody else already. But some people told me they'd enjoyed them in spite of their faults, for which I'm grateful.

 

There are some tense shifts in the first chapter that are more or less deliberate: it starts out when they're lying in bed the first time, with Donna thinking back in the past tense, but then shifts to the present to take us through what got them there. The second story is from Josh's point of view. Then a very short one from both of them, and back to Donna for the rather clunky ending.  


* * *

This was supposed to be it. This was supposed to be the most important moment of my life. Well, moments—an hour or so. The hour that would change everything. The hour that would complete everything, make everything right. Not perfect—I’m not a teenager anymore—just, right. Really right.

But that was a long time ago. I stopped having that fantasy the night of the shutdown, the night I had that conversation with C.J. and she pointed out just how deluded I was about Josh. Well, to be entirely honest, I didn’t stop having that fantasy completely, but I definitely stopped believing it. What this was really supposed to be was the hour that was going to clear all those ridiculous ideas out of my head for once and for all. I was going to have the sex, get it over with, and get on with my life. It was C.J.’s idea that one-night stands would help me get over him, after all. She meant one-night stands with other men, of course. I tried taking her advice, but it never seemed to work out the way she’d said it would. Maybe I didn’t take it often enough, or maybe I didn’t choose the right men or the right nights, or maybe . . . . 

However, after months of closeness-induced frustration and (because this is Josh we’re talking about) irritation, it finally crossed my sleep-deprived, campaign-drained brain that the one-night stand didn’t have to be with someone else. It could be with him. This is perfect, I thought, when it occurred to me: I can have my cake and eat it too. Indulge this irrational obsession I have for him, resolve the unresolved sexual tension, get him out of my system and be able to think about something else for a change. Like other men’s biceps, other men’s cheekbones, other men’s asses, other men’s smiles, other men’s dimples, other men’s eyes, other men’s eyebrows . . . . Just, other men. And it would be excellent stress relief; I was really just too keyed up about this campaign. Yes, no question about it, I’d definitely had a brilliant idea there. Someone should give me an honorary degree for an idea like that. Or a promotion to a new position: Professional Political Operative. But I’d already had that.

* * *

The first attempt didn’t work that well. Slipping him my key seemed like a good plan: a cool, sophisticated, I-do-this-all-the-time kind of move. Then Ronna brought it to me. For a minute that upset me; I wondered what message he was sending there, what point he was trying to make. Then I saw his face and realized he wasn’t sending any message, he just hadn’t picked up the key before Ronna did. Which left me pretty much in the dark about why he hadn’t picked up the key, and nothing he said or did the next time I saw him shed a whole lot of light on that. I put my brilliant idea aside for a while after that, but in spite of all my best efforts, I couldn’t seem to forget it. That shouldn’t really come as a surprise: I think I’ve demonstrated pretty conclusively by now that my none of my best efforts to forget about Josh has ever been what you’d call a terrific success. But that’s just because of the sex, because we haven’t had it yet. Once we’ve broken that sexual-tension thing I’ll be able to see him for what he really is and move on. And then everything will be—not perfect, I’m not expecting that. But all right. Then everything will be all right.

So here I am, walking out of this hotel lounge and wondering if he’s going to come after me or not. I could hardly have made myself any plainer without actually bending over and flashing my underwear at him, or grabbing him right there. I think I brought it off pretty smoothly, really. I think I must have looked like I knew what I was doing, even if I haven’t really done this all that often, and even if I admitted I’ve never done it on a campaign before. I wasn’t really planning to let that slip, but I’m hoping he’ll forget it. I’m walking like I know what I’m doing, aren’t I? I’m not Donna Dairy Queen anymore. I’ve picked up guys before. I’ve had my share of casual sex. I’m not really a Sex and the City girl, but I know how to act like one. I know how to be cool, collected, sophisticated. I can do this. Right?

Yeah, he’s coming after me. I didn’t think he could resist. A campaign fling, no strings attached—what guy would turn that one down? 

* * *

He doesn’t try to touch me in the elevator. He stands a little way away from me, looking at me sideways, not touching me, not saying anything. I stare straight ahead, smiling a little, hoping I look enigmatic and sexy instead of crazy with nervousness and—whatever this is I’m feeling. Lust, I guess; that’s all it could be. Nervousness and lust. 

He follows me to his room, just a step behind me, the way I used to walk behind him all the time back in the White House, the way I still end up walking behind him when he’s tearing off to do something important for the campaign. He’s letting me take the lead here. I wonder what that means? I like to take the lead a little, but I don’t want to have to take it all the way. There wouldn’t be much stress relief in that; more like a stress-compounder: do this, do that; put it there; no, not there, there; faster, slower; harder, softer; not like that, no—I’m getting stressed just thinking about it. I hope he’s better than that. He’s got to be, doesn’t he? He’s had plenty of experience, and he’s a take-charge kind of guy, to put it mildly. And I can’t imagine any of his girlfriends I’ve known . . . . but I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about them.

I wish he’d put his hand on my back, but he doesn’t. We get to his door and I hold out my hand for his keycard and open it and walk in. He stops just over the threshold, holding the door open, looking at me in such a strange way. “You might want to shut the door,” I say over my shoulder. I’m trying to sound very collected here. He takes another step into the room and lets it close behind him, but doesn’t come any closer to me.

I turn around and look him up and down. “Donna,” he says, his voice cracking like a teenager’s. “Jo-osh,” I say. Mocking is one of the things I do well with Josh. If I can mock him a little now, maybe I can do this. 

“Are you—sure—you want—to do this?” He sounds pretty unsure himself, which makes me more nervous than I was a minute ago. If he doesn’t want this . . . .

“Do what?” I say, trying to stay cool.

“This,” he says, gesturing kind of wildly into the room, towards the bed. 

“We don’t seem to be doing anything at the moment.” 

He swallows, hard. “We could change that,” he says, taking a step towards me. His voice is a whole lot lower-pitched than it was.

“So we could.” 

“Okay,” he says huskily, still standing there, just looking at me and not doing anything. What on earth does he want? And then I realize. Of course. He’s worried about what’s going to happen tomorrow if we do this tonight. 

“Okay, Josh,” I say, moving in to close the gap between us. “But maybe we should get on with it. We’ve got an election to win tomorrow, and it’s pretty late now; our time for casual sex is kind of limited here.”

I’m proud of the way I managed to slip that in. Just to make myself clear. Just in case he’s holding back here because he’s afraid of what I might expect from him tomorrow. I might not have slept with him before, but I know Josh well enough to know there’s a reason why he’s forty-five and not married, and he knows me well enough to know I don’t always take it well when my dates don’t call back or send roses the next day, when they don’t want a long-term thing.

A strange expression crosses his face. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice sounds—odd. I’m not used to that voice from Josh, or that expression on his face; I don’t know what they mean. “Yeah. Of course. That’s right.” He takes my face in his hands and starts to kiss me, almost roughly. I kiss back. And things go on more or less as you’d expect from there.

* * *

So here I am, lying with my back turned to him, as close to the edge of the bed as I can get. He’s lying the same way, which is pretty much what I was expecting. What I wasn’t expecting is that we didn’t have to be lying this way. No guy I’ve ever slept with casually—okay, no guy I’ve ever slept with, period—has ever wanted anything else after sex: they say thanks, they roll over, maybe they mutter a sleepy compliment or two, but that’s basically it until they’re ready for the next round of athletic fun. Josh, wouldn’t you know, is different. He tried to hold me afterwards; I’m the one who rolled away. He’s reached out to touch me three or four times in the hour we’ve been lying here; he pulls back when I don’t respond. I never expected him to do that. It’s thoughtful of him. I should be grateful: I used to hate it when guys wouldn’t make the effort even to pretend the sex was something more than what it was. Now I wish he wouldn’t. It’s making this so much harder than it should be. Harder than I think I can really take.

If I let him touch me now, let him hold me, I don’t know what will happen. I might hold on to him so hard I’d break something. I might break down and cry. I might fall apart and start babbling incoherently about that day in New Hampshire eight—almost nine—years ago, about working for him, about working for Will, about working for him again in this new role and all the complicated things I feel about it. About Rosslyn, about Gaza, about Germany, about coming home, about the therapy I had to do, about that last fall before I left. About leaving. About being away. About coming back. And since I have absolutely no idea what I would say about any of those things—no idea which of the hundreds of thousands of completely contradictory things I’ve thought and still think about those things, whenever I’m stupid enough to think about them at all—because I have absolutely no idea what would come tumbling out of my mouth, I need to make absolutely certain I don’t open it and start babbling at all. Because it would be embarrassing. Demoralizing. Humiliating. Because this is just campaign sex. Just stress relief. Just a chance to resolve some unresolved sexual tension, just a little sex therapy for a woman who’s been just a bit obsessed with a man for a very long time. 

The trouble is, I’m not feeling the way I was expecting. The sex wasn’t what I was expecting. I’ve had a fair amount of sex in my life: it’s good or it’s bad, there isn’t much in between. I’ve been lucky: I’ve never had a really seriously bad time. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a really totally stunning, absolutely amazing, completely thrilling time, either. What we just had could have been any or all of those, but it wasn’t; it was—different. Not what I was expecting. Not bad, certainly. Good, really—more than good; I’m sure most women would call it excellent. But it felt strange, and not the way I was expecting.

The way he kissed me wasn’t what I was expecting. When we kissed that first time, that morning when I came into his room with the polling results and he grabbed me and kissed me, it was different from this: gentler, more intimate, although of course neither of us was expecting it to lead to anything else; we weren’t even expecting it to happen. It’s not that there was anything wrong with the way he kissed me tonight, or with what came after it. He was passionate. He was sexy. He took the lead. After I told him to get on with it, he didn’t hesitate, and he knew what he was doing. Which is what I was really expecting—he’s had plenty of experience, and I couldn’t imagine Mandy or Amy sticking around with a man who wasn’t good in bed. I can now say it for myself: Josh is good in bed. He asks all the right questions, does all the right things, does them in pretty much the right way. He lasted longer than I was expecting, considering his sensitive system and the whiskey he’d been drinking before we came upstairs. And he even tried to hold me afterwards and say nice things to me.

But something was missing, something didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the whiskey. It was all I could smell when he kissed me, all I could taste. I don’t mind the smell or the taste—I’d been drinking it too—but I minded it on him. It made him taste like half the other men I’ve slept with, not like what I was expecting, not like Josh. The other morning when he grabbed me and kissed me he tasted like sleep and stale coffee, but underneath that he tasted like Josh. And I know what Josh should taste like, even though I’d never kissed him before. You can’t take a man’s shirts to the dry cleaners for eight years without knowing what he should taste like. You can’t sleep on busses and planes next to a man for eight years without knowing what he should taste like. And Josh shouldn’t taste like whiskey: it’s not really his drink. He only drinks it when he’s either badly depressed, or showing off. Or when he thinks he has to to fit in with whoever he’s drinking with, which is pretty much the same thing as showing off. He should taste like beer or coffee with cream and three sugars or peppermint toothpaste, but underneath that he should taste like—Josh. 

Maybe it was the whiskey, maybe it was something else: I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore, what to feel. I thought I knew what was going to happen tonight: the sex might be good, the sex might be bad, but in the end it would be just sex, like all the other sex I’ve had in my life, even with Alan, and when it was over I’d feel—free. Released, resolved. Ready to go on. I might not have done this on a campaign before, but I’ve had enough casual sex to know how it works. It doesn’t work like this. It doesn’t leave you wanting to hold on to the man lying next to you so hard you might break something. It doesn’t leave you wanting to spill out the whole story of your life and everything you’ve ever felt, everything you’ve ever thought about him in all its embarrassing, humiliating detail. It doesn’t leave you wanting to break down and cry. It leaves you feeling a little cheap, or a little dirty, or a little sad that this is the only kind of sex you’re able to get anymore; it leaves you wondering when you’re going to find the man who doesn’t leave you feeling this way; but it doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve found him but he’s on one side of the universe and you’re on another and in between there’s about a trillion, zillion lightyears of cold, empty space. It doesn’t leave you feeling like you’re lying beside the person you know better than anyone else in the world and you’re farther away from him than you’ve ever been before. It doesn’t leave you feeling like you’ve just had sex without touching each other at all.

No, that’s wrong. That’s exactly what it does. I guess I got what I wanted: I’ve just had casual, no-strings-attached sex with Josh. And that’s why I’m lying here feeling lonelier than I’ve ever felt in my life but not able to let him touch me, because the more he touches me, the farther away he seems. Because I know his touch doesn’t mean anything. I know this is just a campaign fling.

And that’s okay, right? It has to be. It’s what I wanted, after all. Maybe, if we wait just a little while longer, I’ll be able to let him touch me again, we’ll be able to do this again. I just need a little time now to pull myself together, to remind myself who I am and who he is and what this is all about. I’m a professional political operative now, like he is. The election is what really matters to him, and to me too. This is just campaign sex, what professional political operatives do to fill in time on election night, when they can’t campaign anymore and the stakes are too high and the wait is too long to bear. It’s part of the job: a professional political operation. If I pull myself together now, we can do this again later. If we do it enough, maybe I’ll get used to it. Maybe I’ll learn the art of having sex with Josh without his touching me or my touching him at all.

* * *   
* * *


	2. The Art of Wanting to Make Love and Just Giving Bad Sex

I wanted to make love to her, but all she wanted was sex.

I’m not complaining, of course. What guy ever complains about a woman’s wanting sex? Let alone this woman. Donna Moss. Tall, beautiful, sexy Donnatella Moss. My Donna, my Donnatella . . . . No, not mine. Mine for an hour, mine for a night, but not—she made this very clear—mine for any longer than that.

She wanted me tonight, I guess. Wanted sex, anyway, and didn’t absolutely mind the idea of having it with me. Or that was how she felt at the beginning. I’m not so sure how she felt about it after an hour; she didn’t seem to want any more. Didn’t want me to hold her. Didn’t want me to touch her, even. Have you ever met a woman who didn’t want to be held and touched after sex? I should be happy, right? Lets me off the hook. Lets me roll over and go to sleep. Every man’s dream: sex with a tall, beautiful, sexy, undemanding woman who doesn’t expect you to stay awake and talk to her half the night afterwards and doesn’t put your arm to sleep by lying on it when she finally gets tired and drifts off.

I’m not every man, I guess. Or, more to the point, she’s not every woman. I didn’t roll over and go to sleep; I couldn’t. I lay there wondering what I’d done wrong and what was going to happen now and whether this was really going to be the train wreck I thought it was and whether there was anything I could do to put it right. 

I blame the whiskey. If I hadn’t had it, I’d have had more sense than to follow Donna upstairs to my room and have sex with her. I can’t see any way the consequences of this can be good. Not for me, anyway. Maybe it will be okay for her—it’s what she wanted, right? I’m surprised, to be honest. Surprised she wanted to do it with me at all, surprised she wanted to do it like this. Not that I haven’t known for a few days now what she had in mind—she did try to pass me her room key, after all—but before that, I’d have guessed that my chances of getting into bed with Donna would be unlikely to inch significantly over zero if there were a nuclear holocaust and I was the last functional adult male left on earth. I mean, she’s been pretty obviously furious with me for a pretty long time now. I’m not really sure why. Something to do with my bringing her the wrong kind of wine, something to do with my liking burned hamburgers. Or, you know, something to do with the fact that I sent her to a very dangerous place where she got hurt and almost died. Yeah, I’m not really as clueless about why Donna’s been angry with me as I’d like to be. Things have warmed up a little between us since she yelled at me about the hamburgers, but not all that much. So you can see why I was thrown for a loop when she let me kiss her the other day, why I nearly dropped my pants when she gave me that key. Okay, not a good choice of words there, but you know what I mean, right?

Where was I? Oh yeah, the whiskey, and the consequences of sleeping with Donna not being so good. The thing about Donna is, she isn’t like this. Or she didn’t use to be like this. She doesn’t do just one night stands; she isn’t a sex-for-sex’s-sake sort of woman. She wants a relationship; she wants sex that means something; she wants a guy who really cares about her and is going to make a commitment one day. Or that’s what she used to want. She deserves those things. And if I was what she wanted, she could have them with me; they’re what I want too. Don’t laugh; I mean it. I’ve changed. I’ve grown up now. Chasing down a hospital corridor trying to find the woman you love tends to do that to you. But she had another guy there; she seemed to like him a lot, so I had to fade into the background. I didn’t want to mess that one up for her, not there, not then, not after everything that had happened, everything I’d put her through. If he was what she wanted, I wasn’t going to try to get in the way. Not that I could have; she was in a hospital bed, I couldn’t exactly tell her she had to work late with me that night and be in early the next morning, and oh, would she get me the Tannhauser files please? And I couldn’t get him banned from the waiting room, much though I’d have loved to.

So, I’m saying, I don’t get what’s happening with Donna here, and that makes me very nervous. I’d probably do something wrong, say something wrong and mess everything up even if I did think I understood what she wanted. When I know I don’t understand, I know I’m doomed. Add that to the fact that I may have just given her bad sex here. I didn’t think I was—I was giving her my best, and I’ve always had the impression from other women that my best stood up pretty well in comparison with other guys—but she was awfully quiet about it, really. Not that I expected her to scream or anything; not every woman wants to do that, especially the first time, and I can see that maybe with me . . . . I mean, I’ve been her boss. I AM her boss. I can see how that might be a little inhibiting, you know? I thought I was getting a pretty good reaction, actually, even if she wasn’t yelling about it. She didn’t push me away until it was all over. When I was trying to cuddle her. When I was trying to work myself up to telling her that this wasn’t just campaign sex for me, but a whole, whole lot more. I could have used a little more of the whiskey then. But maybe that was the problem; maybe I gave out too soon. She’s always said I have a sensitive system. Damn it, I shouldn’t have drunk that last slug. Dutch courage—though why they call it that, when the stuff comes from Scotland, I’ll never know. 

Of course, if I hadn’t drunk the whiskey I wouldn’t have had the nerve to follow her at all. Which would be good in one way, because I wouldn’t have just given Donna bad sex. But it would be pretty damn bad in another way, because I’d have stood her up. Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. I can’t win, can I? Except in politics. Oh God, I don’t dare think that . . . .

I think I need some more whiskey. I can’t have it now, but when this infernal, eternal day is over and we’ve lost or won or whatever it is we’re going to do, I’m going to spend seventy-five dollars to buy a bottle just for me and get really, truly, out-of-my-mind, falling-down, forget-the-world drunk. Then maybe I’ll forget what just happened. I’ll forget about sleeping with Donna and screwing it up. I’ll forget about wanting to make love to the woman I love, and just giving her bad sex.

* * *  
* * *


	3. The Art of Having Sex While Suspended in Time

This isn’t about the past and it isn’t about the future. It seems unconnected to what happened last year or last night or to anything that might happen tomorrow or on any of the tomorrows after that. It’s not even about tonight, although tonight is all either of us was thinking about a minute before we began and all we could think about a minute after it was over. But for this half-hour, this hour, it seemed as if we were suspended in time. 

He needed a break, and so did I. This time it was—better. Easier, freer, than the first. He didn’t taste of whiskey; he tasted like himself. Maybe I tasted more like myself too—I hadn’t thought about it before, but maybe he found the liquor on my breath last night as strange as I found it on his. He’s slept next to me on countless busses and planes too. I let him hold me for a minute at the end; I could take it this time. It’s sweet that he still wanted to. It was only a minute; then he wanted to watch the news, which was fine by me—I wanted to too. I don’t know; I don’t know what’s going on—for me, for him. Maybe this is just a campaign fling; maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s more complicated than I was thinking; maybe it’s simpler. I don’t know. Everything’s so big today, and so hard, with this waiting, waiting, and nothing left we can do. Neither of us can really think about anything else except that, and that’s okay. This other stuff is just sex, right? Just me and Josh having sex. Me and Josh—oh, god, the way he smells, the way he tastes, the way he sounded, the way his face looked over mine when . . . . but it’s just sex, Donna, just something we’re both pretty good at, something we can do. We can’t really do a whole lot else right now, except drive the speechwriters crazy by asking them to keep generating new twists on Santos’ speeches for tonight. If this keeps us both going until tonight it’s a good thing, and that’s all that matters right now. Maybe he’ll want it again; maybe he won’t. Maybe I can cope with that; maybe I can’t. I can’t think about it right now; I can’t think about anything right now except getting through this day. Getting both of us through this day.

* * *

She wanted to do it again. I couldn’t believe it, but she wanted to do it again. I guess I didn’t give her such bad sex last night after all. Thank god—I was worried there. I still don’t know what’s going on with Donna, what she really wants here, but she seems easier with it and that’s good. That’s more than good, it’s great, right? Really great. I mean, I just had sex with Donna twice in the last twenty-four hours; what could be greater than that? Okay, I could think of ways it could be greater. I’d like to know what she’s thinking. I’d like to be able to tell her what I’m thinking, even though what I’m thinking scares the hell out of me and I have no idea how, or even if, I’ll be able to tell her or not. It would help if I knew she was thinking something along the same lines, but I don’t, I really don’t. The chances are actually pretty much against it—I mean, she said it was just casual sex. It’s just—I mean, geez, there’s no way in hell it can be just casual sex for me. Not when it’s Donna. So maybe it’s casual for her with me, or maybe . . . . I don’t know. 

I can’t really think about it right now. There’s too many other things to think about, like Matt’s speeches, like the exit polls, like getting us all through this day. Everyone’s getting all excited here, and I’m starting to worry we’re going to celebrate too soon. I’m worried we’re gonna jinx this thing by celebrating too soon. That’s not a rational thought, I know, but there it is: everyone who’s done this job before knows it, you can’t afford to celebrate too soon. You’re tempting whatever powers there be. Whether there are any or not isn’t the point; you just can’t do it, you can’t celebrate too soon. Which is also why I can’t let myself think too hard about having just had sex with Donna for the second time in twenty-four hours. It was great, it was better than great—but there’s no guarantee there’s going to be any more. If there isn’t, I don’t know what I’ll do; I don’t know if I can take it, if . . . . but I can’t afford to think about that. I can’t afford to think about what’s going to happen tonight, whether we’re going to win or lose, whether Donna’s going to want to sleep with me again or not, whether she’s thinking the same way I am or not. I just need to get through this infernal, eternal day and get there. Get Matt there. Get Leo there. God, it would be amazing though—President Santos, Vice-President McGarry. It would be even more amazing the other way round, but Leo was too tired last winter and he wouldn’t have gone for it anyway; he’s never wanted it for himself, and even if he did, he doesn’t need that level of stress now. I always thought Vice-President McGarry would be good—hell, I always thought President McGarry would be good; you can’t get any better than Leo. The country deserves someone that good in the Oval, or at least in the Vice-President’s suite, where he can talk to the President every day. Thank god, if we do win he’ll be there; we wouldn’t be able to do this without him. We wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without him. It’ll be amazing tonight, if Matt, and Leo . . . . Stop it, Josh. And god, if Donna . . . . Damn it, cut it out. You’ve got to stop thinking like this. Don’t want to jinx this thing; god, I just don’t want to jinx it. Got to stop thinking about tonight. Focus, Josh, focus. Got to stop thinking about tonight. Just got to get through this day. Got to get all of us through this day . . . .

* * *  
* * *


	4. The Art of Making Love With Your Clothes On

I’ve never seen him cry before. 

He’s never let me. I don’t think he’s let anyone see that, not even his girlfriends. Especially not his girlfriends; they’ve always been the kind who’d use it against him somehow. I could be wrong, of course, but I don’t think I am—I don’t think he’s let anyone see him cry, maybe not since he was a very small boy. 

He didn’t cry after he was shot, at least not when I was there. He needed to: I’ve never seen anyone in that much pain for that long. I thought I knew how bad it was, until I had chest surgery too and realized I’d had no idea. And I still have no idea, because what they did to me took less than an hour and he was under for fourteen, and I wasn’t on bypass and hadn’t been shot. That kind of pain changes you: it changed me, and I know it changed him. I cried. But if he let himself cry it was at night when no one was there to see. If he let himself cry at all.

He didn’t cry when they told him he had post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s an incurable psychiatric condition. People get better with it—they don’t get the episodes as often, they don’t get them as badly, they learn how to manage better when they do have them—but they never really get over it, or that’s what I understood from what I read about it, and I read an awful lot about it at the time. I know he was terrified before they told him what it was; he must have thought he was losing his mind. I know he was still frightened after they told him: he was afraid the Secret Service wouldn’t let him in the building anymore, even though Leo said he’d keep his job. He was afraid he’d never be able to listen to music again, and he loves music—really loves it, though it isn’t something he talks about a lot or lets a lot of people see. He was afraid when I took him to the emergency room to have his hand looked at—afraid someone would ask how he’d done it, afraid someone from the press would see him there and everyone would know. He was afraid he’d put his hand through a window again. He didn’t tell me he was frightened; he didn’t have to—I could see it in his face, hear it in his voice when he was telling me the little he did. He was hurting inside and outside, he was frightened and humiliated and almost lost then, but he didn’t cry. He didn’t even come close to crying.

It’s not that he doesn’t feel things; he does—a lot. So much more than most people realize. It’s not what they expect from someone in his job; it’s not what they expect from someone like him. They see the single-mindedness, the focus, the intensity, the drive, and they think that’s all there is. Most of them don’t like him very much. It’s hard to blame them: look at that pep talk he gave the staff this morning, when he was too tense to say thank-you to anyone, when all he could do was find fault. When he’s got his mind set on getting something done, that’s all he can think about; he’s oblivious to other people’s feelings then. It can be hard to take. I should know, I’ve been there, especially this past year: I’ve been one of those people who doesn’t like Josh very much. Or at least part of me has been, part of the time; there was always that other part of me that wouldn’t stop liking him, no matter how much I wanted it to. But I remember now what I’ve been forgetting all this time: when Josh is like that, he’s pretty much oblivious to his own feelings, too. Which isn’t good for him, any more than it is for the people around him. It isn’t good for him at all.

What the others don’t see is what I’ve seen: a man who came to my apartment all but falling-down drunk one night to tell me I didn’t have to worry about what would happen if there was a nuclear holocaust, because he’d told the NSA he wouldn’t get on a plane with the President and leave me alone. He wasn’t what you’d call coherent—he seemed to think this decision would somehow make me feel safer. The funny thing is, it did. It wasn’t just me, of course—he told me he didn’t want to leave me, or C.J., or Sam, or even Toby on our own. Exactly what he thought he could do to help us if he stayed, I don’t know; that wasn’t the point. He has a sense of responsibility beyond anyone’s I’ve ever met; he makes burdens for himself no one could carry, and then tries to carry them and run at the same time. He thinks he has to save the world. He’ll jump on desks and shout like a maniac when he thinks he’s done it. He can’t forgive himself when he finds he hasn’t. But he doesn’t cry about it, not in front of other people, not in front of me. Not until now. 

He didn’t cry when I told him his father died, not in front of the others, not in front of me. His face screwed up and his eyes got wet, and then he left the room. He didn’t cry when I told him they’d taken Leo to the hospital. He didn’t cry when he saw Annabeth crying, when she told us what had happened, when he knew the worst. Other people were there then, and Josh doesn’t cry in front of other people. Or that’s what I thought.

But he’s crying now. I’m here, and he’s crying for Leo, and he isn’t trying to make me think he’s doing anything else. He wipes his face, but he doesn’t turn away. His voice cracks when he tells me the thing I know is hurting him the most. He isn’t hiding anything from me, not anything that matters at all.

And I’m not hiding anything either. I tell him what’s happened isn’t his fault. I tell him what an amazing thing this is that he’s done with this campaign. I tell him how proud Leo was of him, how proud he should be of himself. And without saying another word I’ve just told him how proud I am of him too. How well I know him. How much I care about him, how much he means to me. All the things I’ve been so afraid to show him this last year, I’m showing him now. 

And he’s showing me. Without saying a word about me, he’s showing me how much he trusts me, how close he feels to me, how much he needs me. He bends his head and rests it against my chest. I put my hand on his back and rub it gently. 

We’ve been like this before, almost, but it’s different now. He’s crying and not trying to hide it from me. I’m not trying to pretend that this is just my job.

We’re in the room where a man we both loved died just a few hours ago. His things are everywhere; housekeeping will be here any minute now to clean them up. We both have our clothes on, but I feel like we’re naked. Sex is the last thing either of us is thinking about, but we’re making love now like we’ve never made it before.

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Feedback is always appreciated.


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